California sues to stop Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico

Updated 3:47 pm, Wednesday, September 20, 2017

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President Trump addressed DACA, border security and the border wall during a Q&A with reporters on Thursday.

Media: GeoBeats

President Trump’s proposed wall along the Mexican border would violate environmental laws, and the authorization he says he has to build it comes from a federal waiver that expired long ago, Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Wednesday in a lawsuit seeking to block construction of the barrier, particularly its segments in California.

“The Trump administration has once again ignored laws it doesn’t like in order to resuscitate a campaign talking point to build a wall on our southern border,” Becerra said in a statement as he and supporters of the suit spoke to reporters at Border Field State Park, south of San Diego.

“We don’t need more (physical) structure,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego. “What we need is a good relationship” with Mexico.

Filed in federal court on behalf of the state and the California Coastal Commission, the suit challenges Trump’s claim, in a Jan. 25 executive order, that he had the authority to disregard restrictions in federal and state laws in order to enhance border security by building a wall.

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Click through this gallery to see the renderings of proposed ideas for Trump's border wall.

Click through this gallery to see the renderings of proposed ideas for Trump's border wall.

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Penna Group

Penna Group

Photo: Penna Group

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Penna Group

Penna Group

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Penna Group

Penna Group

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Penna Group

Penna Group

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WTC, Inc

WTC, Inc

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San Diego Project Management

San Diego Project Management

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Otra Nation

Otra Nation

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Otra Nation

Otra Nation

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RS1 Holdings, Inc. has released renderings of the company's border wall prototype: a curved, 30-foot-tall concrete concept called the TALON WALL.

RS1 Holdings, Inc. has released renderings of the company's border wall prototype: a curved, 30-foot-tall concrete concept called the TALON WALL.

Photo: Courtesy, RS1 Holdings, Inc.

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RS1 Holdings, Inc. has released renderings of the company's border wall prototype: a curved, 30-foot-tall concrete concept called the TALON WALL.

RS1 Holdings, Inc. has released renderings of the company's border wall prototype: a curved, 30-foot-tall concrete concept called the TALON WALL.

Photo: Courtesy, RS1 Holdings, Inc.

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Rod Hadrian of Tridipanel

Rod Hadrian of Tridipanel

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Rod Hadrian of Tridipanel

Rod Hadrian of Tridipanel

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A San Antonio company with experience in building barriers throughout the world including Iraq and Afghanistan submitted these renderings in its bid to build a border wall prototype.

A San Antonio company with experience in building barriers throughout the world including Iraq and Afghanistan submitted these renderings in its bid to build a border wall prototype.

Photo: Courtesy Quantum Logistics

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A San Antonio company with experience in building barriers throughout the world including Iraq and Afghanistan submitted these renderings in its bid to build a border wall prototype.

A San Antonio company with experience in building barriers throughout the world including Iraq and Afghanistan submitted these renderings in its bid to build a border wall prototype.

Photo: Courtesy Quantum Logistics

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A San Antonio company with experience in building barriers throughout the world including Iraq and Afghanistan submitted these renderings in its bid to build a border wall prototype.

A San Antonio company with experience in building barriers throughout the world including Iraq and Afghanistan submitted these renderings in its bid to build a border wall prototype.

Photo: Courtesy Quantum Logistics

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A San Antonio company with experience in building barriers throughout the world including Iraq and Afghanistan submitted these renderings in its bid to build a border wall prototype.

A San Antonio company with experience in building barriers throughout the world including Iraq and Afghanistan submitted these renderings in its bid to build a border wall prototype.

Photo: Courtesy Quantum Logistics

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Gleason Partners

Gleason Partners

Photo: Gleason Partners

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Gleason Partners

Gleason Partners

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Gleason Partners

Gleason Partners

Photo: Gleason Partners

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Gleason Partners

Gleason Partners

Photo: Gleason Partners

California sues to stop Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico

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In fact, the suit contended, federal law would require the government to conduct an environmental study, with public input, and issue a report on the project’s effect on pollution and on plants, animals and their habitat in the border zone. And federal laws allowing construction of additional barriers and roads in “priority areas” expired at the end of 2008, the suit said.

Becerra seeks court orders blocking the entire project until the Trump administration prepares an environmental report, and barring construction of 130 miles of the wall in California unless Congress authorizes it by law. A similar environmental suit was filed in April by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and the Center for Biological Diversity, and the California segments were challenged last week by the Sierra Club and two other environmental groups.

Asked for comment, Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said, “The president is committed to keeping America safe, and a significant part of doing that is securing the border. The Department of Justice looks forward to vigorously defending his inherent authority to do so.”

No timetable has been set for the wall’s construction. Trump declared during his campaign, and several times since taking office, that Mexico’s government would pay for the wall, an assertion dismissed by the nation’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto. More recently Trump has said he would seek funding from Congress, which so far has approved only $20 million for construction of prototypes, or model walls, near the border in San Diego County.

Wednesday’s lawsuit focused on orders issued by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security to waive more than 30 federal laws, including those protecting the environment, coastal areas and historic sites, during the wall’s construction along 130 miles of California’s boundary with Mexico.

The orders said the California sectors were areas of “high illegal entry,” triggering a law signed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton that authorized the government to “install additional physical barriers and roads” to deter illegal border crossings in such areas. Trump, in his Jan. 25 executive order, said the wall was needed because of a “recent surge of illegal immigration along the southwest border.”

But the suit quoted Trump administration reports that said illegal entries across the Mexican border had fallen by more than 90 percent between 2000 and 2016. Similar reductions have been reported in California border areas, the suit said, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection acknowledged in March that there were no “high priority” areas for new barriers in California, Arizona or west Texas.

In addition, the suit said, the only explicit authority Congress has granted to build additional walls in “priority” areas was contained in a 2008 law that expired at the end of that year, after construction of hundreds of miles of additional fencing.

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